Welcome to Windows 7 Forums. Our forum is dedicated to helping you find support and solutions for any problems regarding your Windows 7 PC be it Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or a custom build. We also provide an extensive Windows 7 tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks.

i should have made note. I think the last one I saw was trying the backup command - or copy - it was something that had promise of writing out a copy of the partition/contents. it basically went non-linear and kept repeating the error msg over and over ad infinitum so I had to kill the process.
I'm doing the deep search now and at least it is able to interrogate the cylinders. but I would be very surprised if there is another partition. its the files I'm after...

is there a way to write a new table or something to the zero track so that it might be recognizable under windows?

If it was once recognized under windows, that partition may show up in TestDisk and you can recover it to be viewed in Windows. If not, you will have to use the Photorec program to recover your files, then you can reformat the drive to use it again. I'm afraid to try to fix the file system in any way as it may result in you losing data.

just one more quicky... this really surprised me - threw in a windows xp pro install disc, and it found the drive, ready to install... i don't want to go there though - but it gives hope. an install wouldn't necessarily delete [really] the files but would damage a lot of them in all likelihood

Zapp,

One other thing to try, but not sure if it will work.

Boot from a Windows 7 installation disk as if you were doing a fresh installation. At the screen that prompt for Language, Keyboard Layout etc., hold SHIFT and then hit F10. The CMD window will open at the following prompt X:\Sources.

Now follow these steps:

1. Type diskpart
2. Type list volume
3. If the drive shows up with a letter as per example below, type exit
4. Now change to the drive letter, then type chkdsk /R

one more piece of info f/u on what I did not record properly earlier.
using the linux utils, I see that there IS a 2nd partition, a debug/recover 100mb partition and it is working. It has PC Doctor loaded along with the bootup files/dos. everything in perfect working order.
However when Linux is asked to Mount the other partition - the 100gb one, which it only labels "Hard Drive" [generic], it fails as follows:"Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 13:
ntfs_attr_pread_i:ntfs_preread failed. input/output error. Failed to read vcn 0x1; NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault..... run chkdsk /f"

writh, photorec apparently has a bigtime achille's heel in that it does not recognize USB attached devices. thus, there is no place to "destination" recovered files to, in this case, except a very sparse amount of ram.

Quote: Originally Posted by writhziden

Quote: Originally Posted by zapp22

i should have made note. I think the last one I saw was trying the backup command - or copy - it was something that had promise of writing out a copy of the partition/contents. it basically went non-linear and kept repeating the error msg over and over ad infinitum so I had to kill the process.
I'm doing the deep search now and at least it is able to interrogate the cylinders. but I would be very surprised if there is another partition. its the files I'm after...

is there a way to write a new table or something to the zero track so that it might be recognizable under windows?

If it was once recognized under windows, that partition may show up in TestDisk and you can recover it to be viewed in Windows. If not, you will have to use the Photorec program to recover your files, then you can reformat the drive to use it again. I'm afraid to try to fix the file system in any way as it may result in you losing data.

writh, photorec apparently has a bigtime achille's heel in that it does not recognize USB attached devices. thus, there is no place to "destination" recovered files to, in this case, except a very sparse amount of ram.

That's no good. Sorry to hear that. What happened with Diskpart? Any luck on that front?

haven't tried Diskpart - but help me think through this: I have a good recovery partition on that drive. If I can make it bootable, and add to it the utils to fix NTFS, I have a chance of recovering the files, right? How to do??

haven't tried Diskpart - but help me think through this: I have a good recovery partition on that drive. If I can make it bootable, and add to it the utils to fix NTFS, I have a chance of recovering the files, right? How to do??

It may be as simple as what Golden suggested. If you can list your volumes, even if the volume you are looking for does not have a drive letter but shows up in Diskpart, you have a good start. You can assign a drive letter once you find the drive, and then you can run chkdsk /r on that drive letter.

ok, got on this this a.m. while my brain is working.
very interesting: running the diskpart [actually from a repair disc since that was what was handy] it did a better job of deciphering the fog than did Testdisk. took a long time but finally yielded:
volume 1 ltr C no label, fs: RAW [thats a miss], Partition, 93gb, status: Healthy [another miss]
volume 2 I expected: FAT32 repair partition
volume 3 missed by all previous attempts is a hidden partition of 200mb. ???

at any rate it is now munching away on chkdsk c: /r and we'll see. I imagine it will take a long time. its printing a lot of "unreadable" right now.

thanks G!

Quote: Originally Posted by Golden

Quote: Originally Posted by zapp22

just one more quicky... this really surprised me - threw in a windows xp pro install disc, and it found the drive, ready to install... i don't want to go there though - but it gives hope. an install wouldn't necessarily delete [really] the files but would damage a lot of them in all likelihood

Zapp,

One other thing to try, but not sure if it will work.

Boot from a Windows 7 installation disk as if you were doing a fresh installation. At the screen that prompt for Language, Keyboard Layout etc., hold SHIFT and then hit F10. The CMD window will open at the following prompt X:\Sources.

Now follow these steps:

1. Type diskpart
2. Type list volume
3. If the drive shows up with a letter as per example below, type exit
4. Now change to the drive letter, then type chkdsk /R

ah.. one more question gents: when this is all done, how do I then make something on that drive actually bootable? assuming the best, chkdsk will render the drive at least readable, then I hope to recover/save files & fragments

Failed HDD: Can this drive be reclaimed??

Installed on slave drive and failed........ Help!Not sure where to look for this problem here on the forum. I am hoping that it is an easy fix and some here can help out. Yesterday evening I was attempting to install and ISO of windows7 onto a friend of mines computer. he has a legitimate copy just no disk. His comp will not boot to the USB...

Installation & Setup

hard drive failed, system image not found on hard drivehi all,
i hope someone can help me out, i am a newbie to all this so bare with me.
my hard drive failed over a month ago but i managed to do a system image with win7 to my new 2tb internal hard drive. i cannot get the image recovery to work as i says "no image can be found on hard disk". i am at...

Backup and Restore

Pen drive instalation drivers failedhi,
i am trying to install WIN7x64 from my Lexar USB JumpDrive. I have followed steps to make a bootable usb and when i go into windows instalation it says that "A requred CD/DVD drive device driver missing. Please insert diskete with a driver etc." Also it unable to see my usb drive while in...

Installation & Setup

Hard Drive Failed, anyway to fix?My hard drive failed and i can not boot up my computer or even reinstall windows 7. Is there anyway to fix my hard drive? I've read somewhere that putting it in an anti-static bag and then in the freezer will help it be usable. So overall, is there anyway to continue using this hard drive or do i...

General Discussion

Hard Drive FAILED:( Need Help ASAPHi all, I am having a huge problem at the moment. I purchased a new Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 2TB hard drive (MAR 2011) a few days ago and transferred all my data to it after a few hours use including important documents and now it has stopped working, it does not spin at all:cry:. I have purchased,...

Hardware & Devices

failed hard driveHey everyone!
I was told hard drives can break down & have to be replaced.
hard drives with moving parts that is.
My question is if my hard drive where to fail, I would have to buy a new one and install windows vista first to go to my windows 7 or can i just install windows 7 on it?
Not...